Verizon selling Motorola and LG devices loaded with VMware software.

At long last, VMware's dual-persona software for smartphones is available on actual devices. Today, VMware and Verizon Wireless announced that the Android-based LG Intuition and Motorola Razr M can now be purchased with VMware's Horizon Mobile software, which separates the device into isolated partitions that keep a user's work applications and data separate from personal stuff.

VMware began promising virtualized smartphones in 2010, claiming they would be available for sale in 2011. Samsung promised to support VMware's virtualized phone vision in September 2011, and VMware started promising virtualization for iPhones and iPads in August 2012. We called it "vaporware."

Samsung and Apple devices still aren't running the dual-persona software, but it's nice to see VMware phones finally materialize. VMware and Verizon said the Intuition and Razr M are immediately available for sale with Horizon Mobile software. Perpetual licenses to Horizon Mobile start at $125 per user and "can be purchased through local resellers of VMware and Verizon Wireless," the companies said.

Horizon Mobile runs a hypervisor on the Android phone to create a guest operating system—a second instance of Android—to isolate a user's work or personal apps and data. The user's employer can then manage the corporate side of the phone without having any visibility into the user's personal space. The corporate side of the device is encrypted and can be integrated with "standard enterprise directory services."

"The old BlackBerry model of locking and wiping the device is no longer in line with how employees use their devices," Srinivas Krishnamurti, VMware's Senior Director for Mobile, wrote on the company blog. "IT administrators can now leverage VMware Horizon Mobile to isolate personal content from corporate content and only manage the corporate content on the device. The corporate content resides in a 'workspace' whose lifecycle and usage is managed by IT. IT can customize what apps are in the workspace and what policies are applied to the workspace, provision the workspace to the user’s device over the air (OTA) and then manage its lifecycle remotely."

VMware is far from the only player in the dual-persona space. BlackBerry is rolling out "Secure Workspace" technology for iOS and Android and has BlackBerry Balance for its own devices. Similar functionality comes from Good for Enterprise, and Verizon previously partnered with a company called Divide to offer dual-persona capability. Divide can be used for free on iOS and Android phones.

So will people buy VMware phones? We polled Ars readers last December and the answer was clear: you guys want dual-persona phones. However, we'd think that dual-persona systems would only really take off if they hit the most popular devices, namely Apple's and Samsung's. A true "bring-your-own-device" model for IT should give users a wide choice of phones and tablets.

Although everyone wants a piece of the mobile device market, VMware can't afford to make smartphone virtualization its top engineering priority, as it fends off a serious challenge from Microsoft to its core server virtualization and management business. But VMware said it will continue working with Verizon to "enable a broad set of new and existing devices."

27 Reader Comments

We polled Ars readers last December and the answer was clear: you guys want dual-persona phones. However, we'd think that dual-persona systems would only really take off if they hit the most popular devices, namely Apple's and Samsung's.

How far does the Ars population deviate from the population as a whole?

This isn't a foolproof plan, but I'd like to use one of these phones so that I could have a separate persona that I could use to download apps that require personal information that I don't want to give them. This separate persona would only be used for doing activities like that so I wouldn't care. Obviously, the big drawback is that I wouldn't be able to use apps that actually require access to things like my contacts. I'm more interested in this possibility than a phone that can be used for peronal and work functions.

For me, the big issue would be the phone choice, not being stuck with limited models. For instance I run a a Samsung rugby (water, shock and temperature resistant) for a reason. Similarly my wife would not want to give up her large screen Note for a generic model.

We polled Ars readers last December and the answer was clear: you guys want dual-persona phones. However, we'd think that dual-persona systems would only really take off if they hit the most popular devices, namely Apple's and Samsung's.

How far does the Ars population deviate from the population as a whole?

Hey playa...Do you have a suspicious significant other?Tired of them demanding to see your phone to see who you're calling?Going broke paying for two phones, to try keep yo' business separate?Now there's a better way!

[they really need to make that ad...]

Actually that also be practical for people who have oncall rotations and don't want to carry two phones (sometimes the security restricts on password complexity or screen time are a pain, and the constant flood of work email when you don't need them are a pain).

Do the two personalities include two differnet phone numbers? I will carry two separate phones until I can get two side by side personalities on the phone that each have their own distinct phone number. Having one run inside the other does not work for me.

I don't see how this will work out well for normal people. Completely firewalling the business from the personal side sounds good, but remember most people have trouble adding contacts to their phones - nevermind trying to pick the right place to put Aunt Betty vs Jim from sales. Likewise, people will be very confused as to why they can't use X app to open a PDF in personal mode vs work mode...

And what happens when someone sends attachments to/from their personal gmail account instead of the work account?

I think just offering support for this kind of environment would offset any potential benefit. I think in the end IT will end up just taking the hardline stance of "yes it's your personal device but you're going to put a PIN on it and we can wipe it at any time including after you've been terminated". It's just easier to manage...

This needs virtualization support. The MSM8960 Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 used in the Razr M and LG Intuition have ARM Cortex A15 virtualization instructions, but they're available only in a small minority of the installed smartphone base just now. The situation should be better by the end of the year, though. But good luck getting access to them on the iPhone, VMware, even when (if) they're supported.

"as it fends off a serious challenge from Microsoft to its core server virtualization and management business."

From my perspective, the most serious challenge to VMWare's business is VMWare's own attitudes. I have 2 separate legit VMWare licenses, but I'm moving to VirtualBox rather than pay VMWare the $50 they want to upgrade to a version of VMWare Fusion that will work on OS X Mountain Lion. That $50 upgrade price is a great deal because it is the same as the new price? Um yeah. The party line appears to be that it is great because it gets you the "professional" version which has some stuff that I (or most home users) will never care in the least about. But then VMWare has made it pretty explicit that the home user is not their main concern.

I can't see very many corporate IT departments shelling out for this software. It solves a problem users have, not IT departments. I expect it will fall on users to purchase the license for themselves, provided they are allowed.

If this would allow me to run my phone rooted and have a vm for my work stuff, i'm all for it. Plus i could shut it off on the weekends. Currently we have the inaccurately named Good for Enterprise so i still need to carry two phones because of the no root access policy being enabled. Im pretty sick of having to pay for and carry multiple phones.

It will be great, if launched in 2011. There are already some business apps that solved the problem without needing to separate mobile personality and more importantly without needing to buy mobile phone for the users especially only two models are available. Its importance now depends on total cost of ownership.